Jason Sanfilippo is the stunt coordinator and show production manager at Pirate's Dinner Adventure in Buena Park GREG ANDERSEN, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Jason Sanfilippo

Age: 34

Lives in: Buena Park

Grew up in: Houston and Yorba Linda

First acrobat job: Disneyland in the late 1990s in the Lion King parade

Other interests: Through his job at Pirate's, he's become interested in nautical history and rigging – the system of ropes and chains used to control the masts and sails of the boat

Long-term goal: To open his own acrobatics show

Select film & TV credits

• "Mars Needs Moms"

• "Modern Family"

• "Back in the Game"

• "Justified"

• "Chuck"

• "Warren the Ape"

By the numbers

30 to 50

Number of hours a month

Sanfilippo typically practices

55 feet

Highest fall Sanfilippo has done

4

Highest number of backflips

Sanfilippo completed doing the

Russian swing stunt at Sea World

12 mph

How fast a car was going when Sanfilippo was hit with it as part of a stunt

He's been hit by a car. He's fallen off a cliff. He's been launched 10 feet in the air to land in the San Diego Bay. And nightly, he gets into sword fights and flies through the air with a gypsy.

He's Jason Sanfilippo, also known as Jose the Green Pirate at Pirate's Dinner Adventure. As the dinner theater's stunt coordinator and show production manager, he's responsible for the swashbuckling sword fights and high-flying acrobatics guests see nightly. He is a professional acrobat who has worked for almost every theme park in Southern California and as a stunt double in numerous movies and television shows.

“I love doing the high fall,” he said. “Doing a good fight, those are always a lot of fun.”

Growing up, Sanfilippo said, he was involved in many sports, including gymnastics. That eventually led him to his first theme park job at Disneyland, where he was cast in the Lion King parade. As part of that, he had to learn the Chinese poles – tall poles that acrobats use to climb, slide down, hold poses and jump from. That set him on his path as an acrobat and stuntman.

The most dangerous stunt he's performed, he said, was the Russian swing at Sea World San Diego. In that stunt, a giant swing launched him 10 feet in the air for a distance of up to 40 feet. What made it dangerous was that he landed in the bay, where all sorts of natural hazards were waiting.

Through his career, he's suffered some broken noses and twisted ankles. His worst injury was two herniated discs in his back. The herniated discs happened, he said, from a combination of “not listening to people, not taking care of myself, tumbling on hard floors, thinking I was invincible or that it couldn't happen to me.”

He first came to Pirate's as the Purple Pirate in January 2006, shortly after it first opened but before its grand opening. He wasn't supposed to perform at the grand opening, but all the others who could play the Purple Pirate were out. The afternoon of the show, he was asked to step in with less than a week of rehearsal under his belt.

He immediately added his own flourishes to the role. For example, at one point he purposefully smashed into strongman Andre Baptiste, the Orange Pirate. It wasn't scripted, but he knew it would get laughs based on the contrast of his shortness and the Orange Pirate's height and burliness.

“I'm under no disillusion that I'm short,” Sanfilippo said.

He's been coordinating stunts at Pirate's for about five years, but was officially promoted to stunt coordinator last year. Some of the fights have the same choreography as when the show started. But he's choreographed a three-man fight between Captain Sebastian the Black, the Red Pirate and the Blue Pirate.

He also changed the aerial act with himself and the gypsy from a cradle act to a silk act. The cradle act had him hanging from a box while holding the gypsy and throwing her through the air. The silk act has the two dangling and dancing from two silk sheets.

“Jason is a dedicated actor and aerialist,” General Manager Julio Duran said. “He continually finds new and innovative routines that attract and hold guests' attention, leaving them in awe at the end of the show.”

On the side, Sanfilippo has continued to work for theme parks and picked up a few stuntman jobs on TV and film. His most memorable on-camera role, he said, was as Seth Green's stunt double in “Mars Needs Moms,” an animated film that used motion capture.

“I was in a harness getting tossed around,” he said, “which was a lot of fun.”

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